Descriptive Summary
Special Collections & Archives, Wesleyan UniversityWesleyan University (Middletown, Conn.)Anti-Nuclear Protests Collection, 1972 - 19841000-157Material in English0.51For current information on the location of
these materials, please consult Special Collections & Archives staff.In the 1970s, Wesleyan University students became active against national nuclear arms polices and practices, especially those in New England. The groups of Wesleyan University students involved were the Committee on Environmental Awareness, Connecticut Citizens Conference, Nuclear Resistance Group and Students Opposed to Nuclear Arms Race. These groups organized campus wide informational meetings, showed films and actively participated in walking onto a nuclear arms site in Seabrook, New Hampshire, on April 30, 1977. Around forty Wesleyan Students, along with other activists, were arrested, and some were convicted of criminal trespass due to the April 30 protest.The collection includes statements from the Committee on Environmental Awareness, Connecticut Citizens Conference, Nuclear Resistance Group and Students Opposed to Nuclear Arms Race. Materials include meeting minutes, flyers, notes and Wesleyan and Connecticut press on their activism and other notes and news from the groups. Campus news articles and memos provide accounts of participation in national protests and correspondence with students who were arrested for various protests.
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In 1976, a construction permit was issued for nuclear reactors on the marshes of Seabrook, New Hampshire, near a heavily populated beach community. On April 30, 1977, the Clamshell Alliance organized a protest on the grounds of these marshes calling for the state of New Hampshire and New England as a whole to be a nuclear-free zone. The 1977 Nuclear Resistance Group on Wesleyan's campus was involved in the April 30 protest. On that day, nearly 2,000 people walked onto the construction site to protest having a nuclear presence in New England. Of those 2,000 people, over 1,400 were arrested and 39 Wesleyan students were among them. In June 1977, the Clamshell Alliance held another on-site rally consisting of 20,000 participants of which several hundred also marched to Washington D.C. to protest in front of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Students at Wesleyan who were arrested on April 30 were charged with criminal trespass in the Portsmouth Court and called for bail solidarity, therefore refusing to post bail until they were all released on personal recognizance. They were held for ten or eleven days, during which Wesleyan's Legal Defense and Bail Fund Board organized a fundraising drive for their release. As of May 11, thirty-two Wesleyan students were still held in state armories apparently under severe conditions; some of those arrested spent 14 hours on a cramped bus before any official arrest and some were held in a room with 691 other people.

Although Wesleyan organized a fundraiser for bail, the imprisoned students felt that it would be counterproductive. One student dictated a letter via telephone asking that the Wesleyan community help in writing letters, making phone calls and protesting the Connecticut governor if he were to accept any of the Seabrook prisoners into Connecticut jails. Some of the arrested students posted bail, and on May 13, the remaining prisoners accepted guilty pleas and were released on their own recognizance.

The Nuclear Resistance Group on Wesleyan's campus continued to stay active in the anti-nuclear front. In 1979, the group participated in another nationally recognized anti-nuclear rally in Buchanan, New York. Over two hundred protesters were arrested, Wesleyan students among them. In the early 1980s, protests were held on campus calling for a nuclear freeze.

The anti-nuclear arms groups also proposed and got approved Wesleyan as a nuclear-free zone. This was achieved in 1984 and consisted of an agreement with Wesleyan students and Wesleyan administration that the school would not participate in the production, testing, deployment, storage, or transportation of nuclear weapons. The school also agreed not to participate in research or investment associated with the development of nuclear weapons. Although this referendum was well-received by the Wesleyan community, the Board of Trustees had the final vote on the implementation of this agreement. Many believed this to be a symbolic gesture of the Wesleyan community during the Cold War, although the agreement was practical in the sense of Wesleyan refraining from investments and research related to nuclear arms. Although Wesleyan still had investments in companies that had some varied involvement in nuclear arms production or research, the campus decided to become a nuclear-free zone like many zoned areas in Europe.

Collection Overview

The collection contains folders for each of the groups represented on campus that were active in anti-nuclear arms protests. These folders contain an array of information on the groups. Memos to and from the student groups and faculty as well as documents with their budgets, meeting minutes and membership lists are all included. Many groups also have a group statement with their goals as a group along with information on the greater anti-nuclear movement.

The first folder contains information on the Committee on Environmental Awareness. It includes memos about funding, budget write-ups and allocations. It also contains the goals of the group, a letter to the College Body Committee along with flyers from the group, information on film showings and newspaper clippings and papers on their activities.

The second folder documents from the Connecticut Citizen's conference, which holds pamphlets on their conference in 1983 and pictures of students lobbying.

Folders three through eleven contain information on the Nuclear Resistance Group. Each folder is divided by document type-correspondence, articles and news on the group, notes, films, agendas etc. Folder three and four contain reports and minutes on the Nuclear Power Forum, copies of the Radioactivist Flash, and events bulletin and announcements. Folder five contains proposals, a press announcement and informational flyers on Seabrook and the Reactor Pressure Vessel. The sixth folder contains information pertaining to the Clamshell Alliance and their activities and relationship with Wesleyan. Folder seven contains information on films shown, including receipts from where the films were obtained. Folder eight consists of member information; mailing lists, directories, phone lists and meeting minutes. Folder nine includes notes about the group, letters with other coalitions and dates of correspondence and demonstrations and films. Folder ten consists of press on the group and their demonstrations while folder eleven contains group history, editorials, press release and publications and film lists.

Folder twelve is documents on the group Students Opposed to the Nuclear Arms Race. This folder has the contents of their Alternative Education Forum, flyers, letters to student activists and editors from 1984 as well as information of Nuclear Free Zone and nuclear weapons.

Collection Arrangement

Organized alphabetically by group name.

Online Catalog Headings

These and related materials may be found under the following headings in online catalogs.

Folders three through eleven contain information on the Nuclear Resistance Group. Each folder is divided by document type, such as correspondence, articles and news on the group, notes, films, and agendas.